Workflow Planning - Admin Configuration

Workflow Planning allows you to create a visual timeline for a process flow in which the tasks have known durations. A sample of the timeline visual is featured below.

Key Terms

Workflow Template: A master workflow, created in Studio. Workflow instances are created from this when they are launched on a record.

Workflow Instance: One launched workflow on a specific record.

Task Group: A “set” of tasks that can occur in parallel to another set of tasks, within a stage. They can be used to make group of tasks dependent.

Stage: Comprised of one or more tasks or groups, workflows are visualized by chronological stages. Stages are always dependent on the prior stage in a timeline.

Task: An actionable step in a stage, which can have duration (see detail table below).

Event: A one-time milestone in a stage, with no duration (see detail table below).

Dependencies: A task that is dependent on another task or group automatically adjust due dates based on the changing dates of that task or group (if auto planning is enabled). This is visualized as one or more blue arrows.

Duration: The number of working days each task takes to complete.

Buffers: Positive- days between task Negative- starts a number of days before previous task ends Listed in working days (settings on company calendar).

Planning your Implementation

Before beginning the process, speak with your Lanetix Customer Engagement Manager to request the feature be made available to your organization. Re-configuring a Workflow Template’s tasks, events, and planning features after users have begun launching instances of the workflow can cause errors and is not recommended. Therefore, careful pre-planning is essential.

Consider these questions:

What stages/tasks will you need?

How many working days are in each task?

Would it be helpful to group tasks within a stage? If so, in which group does each task belong?

Are there dependencies, in which one task needs to be completed before the next one begun?

Enabling Workflow Planning for a New Template

While in the Workflow Creation Screen, toggle Enable Workflow Planning “On” when creating the new workflow.

Enabling Workflow Planning for an Existing Template

Within an existing workflow in Creation Studio, click the gear button.

Then choose Planning Options and toggle Enable Workflow Planning on.

The Automatically Replan Task Dates Toggle

The next toggle, “Automatically Replan Task Dates,” is very powerful.

But as with all great power, can be dangerous to wield without proper understanding.

This toggle, if turned on, will cause due dates to be updated when a predecessor task is completed. For example, if your team completed a task early, that’s great! But what does that mean for any dependent tasks? Should their due dates be moved up? Or do they remain as is?

We find it best practice to leave this toggle off. This is due to the fact that the owners of those dependent tasks were given an expectation of their due date and while one person may be early or late in completing a task, it shouldn’t necessarily update the expectations for the next task owner.

However, this feature is very helpful in forecasting and project planning at the beginning of a project. This would give you the opportunity to adjust dates, while having all subsequent dates adjust, and help you determine the most appropriate timeline for your project and manage your resources.

If you’re using it in this way, you will want to turn off this functionality once you’ve set the timeline and before your team begins completing tasks.

Adding Stages, Tasks, and Events

Stages and tasks are added as usual in the workflow creation studio. With Workflow planning enabled, you can also create Events.

Here are the differences between a Task and an Event. Note the difference prior to creating, as they cannot be changed from one to another.

Task

Event

Start and End Dates

Singular Due Date

Duration (length of time between start and end dates)

No duration (only one day)

Appears as a colored bar in the Timeline

Appears as a Diamond in the Timeline

If you want to create an Event, use the Create Event button in Creation Studio; if you want to create a Task, use the Create Task button in Creation Studio.

Task and Event Creation

When creating an Event or Task in the Creation Studio, you will see new options on the creation layout for the Event/Task:

Duration (in working days)

Predecessor: you can pick one Event or Task to be the predecessor for the Event you are creating

If you pick no Predecessor, the Event will be triggered at the Workflow Start Date

See predecessor details below

Buffer: how many days after the predecessor or stage (if no predecessor) starts does this Event start?

Buffers are in working days (ie 10 is two weeks)

Color: what color the Event milestone or Task bars will appear in the Timeline.

This may be used to color coordinate tasks by group, by milestone, etc,

Task Groups

Plan generation can use the structure of Groups to “schedule” a set of tasks as a group. This allows you to create a “set” of tasks that can occur in parallel with another set of tasks.

Note: Use of groups is not necessary, as tasks and events within stages work the same way. This simply allows for additional sectioning of items within a stage.

To add a group, click the “Create Task Group” button.

You can then name the Group and distinguish the timeline color for all tasks within the group, a group predecessor and if there is any buffer (lag) before commencing the tasks in this group.

Once complete, click Save. The group will now appear with an Edit button, a Add button and a “Reorder Tasks” button.

To add tasks to this group, click the Add button and you will see a listing of all tasks. Click each one that you wish to add and a checkmark will appear next to each selected task/event.

Once you’ve chosen all of your tasks/events, click save.

To create a group that is dependent on another group (or a singular task outside of a group) add that information to the Predecessor field as shown below.

Predecessor Information

You can either create groups first and add tasks and events thereafter or create the tasks and events, add the groups (if needed), and then assign tasks and events to the groups.

If you add an existing task or an event to a group, it will lose its existing predecessor. If you do not add a new predecessor, the task or event will trigger off the start of the group. Otherwise, you can set a new predecessor from a task or event within the group.

NOTES REGARDING PREDECESSORS:

A group or singular task/event CANNOT be dependent on a single task within another group. They can only be dependent on an entire group itself or a task/event that takes place outside of grouping.

If you do not assign a predecessor to a task or an event it will trigger off the start of the stage it is in.

Tasks, events, and groups can have only one predecessor (either a single task or a single group)

Likewise, tasks, events and groups can only be one successor (either a single task or a single group)

Tasks and events are allowed to have no predecessor (in which case it will trigger off the start of the stage)

Likewise, tasks are allowed to have no successor

Tasks, events, and groups are NOT allowed to be a predecessor of itself

No Looping! The predecessor/successor relationships within a workflow cannot create a loop. Some examples of loops which are not allowed:

Group and task colors

Currently, any color setting only impacts how the tasks, events and groups appear on the timeline visualization.

Groups can have colors and tasks can have colors. By default, the color of the tasks within a group have the default color of the group, though you can override this if you so choose.

Buffers to control lead and lag

For tasks, events and groups there is the Buffer field. It is entered as a positive or negative number of working days. It defaults to 0 working days. Buffer comes in two flavors:

Lag (positive buffer)

Lag time creates a delay between two tasks that share a dependency (task A is a predecessor of task B). For example, if you want a 2 day delay between the end of the first task and the beginning of the second, go into the second task and add 2 days of buffer.

Lead (negative buffer)

Lead time is an overlap between two tasks, where those two tasks share a dependency. For example, if you want the second task to start when the first task has 3 days yet to be completed, create a dependency between the two tasks, and then add a buffer of -3 days for the second task.

Complete the Workflow Planning

Finish building all the stages, groups tasks and events that you need and then fill in the task/event/group information regarding durations, dependencies and buffer.

You can add fields, text descriptions, etc to all of your tasks and events as you would in a normal workflow.